Defending champion Kyle Ryde set a scorching time inside the existing lap record at Thruxton to lead his rivals in the British Superbike Championship Pre-Qualifying session ahead of tomorrow’s race day, holding off Max Cook and Scott Redding on the opening day.
Ryde turned up the heat in the final session of the day, to slash 0.125s off the existing lap record and move back ahead of Cook and Redding.
Meanwhile, Leon Haslam had been leading the second Free Practice session, but he will now need to go through tomorrow’s ROKiT Oxygen Performance Qualifying 1 after he missed out on a place in the top 12 by 0.024s.
Joe Talbot had an impressive performance on the second AJN Steelstock bimota in fourth place as he continues his rookie season, holding off the Yamaha charge that was led by Rory Skinner on the Cheshire Mouldings Yamaha.
Christian Iddon split the teammates for the Sencat Racing Yamaha team, with Danny Kent claiming sixth place just ahead of Ryan Vickers who denied Bradley Ray a place inside the top eight for the McAMS Yamaha team.
Jason O’Halloran, Lee Jackson and Ilya Mikhalchik completed the top 12 riders through to tomorrow’s ROKiT Oxygen Performance Qualifying 2 session ahead of race one.
British Superbike Championship, Thruxton, Pre Qualifying result:
- Kyle Ryde (Nitrous Coin Nitrous Competitions Racing) 1m:14.530s
- Max Cook (AJN Steelstock bimota) +0.309s
- Scott Redding (Hager PBM Racing Team) +0.344s
- Joe Talbot (AJN Steelstock bimota) +0.487s
- Rory Skinner (Cheshire Mouldings Yamaha) +0.542s
- Christian Iddon (Sencat Racing Yamaha) +0.557s
- Danny Kent (Cheshire Mouldings Yamaha) +0.704s
- Ryan Vickers (Honda Racing UK) +0.710s
- Bradley Ray (McAMS Yamaha) +0.774s
- Jason O’Halloran (Honda Racing UK) +0.907s
- Lee Jackson (DAO Racing Honda) +0.938s
- Ilya Mikhalchik (ROKiT BMW Motorrad British Superbike Race team) +1.043s
For more information visit www.britishsuperbike.com
Kyle Ryde – Nitrous Coin Nitrous Competitions Racing:
“It is obviously a different bike coming here this year, but for me, some of the characteristics were the same and I do feel the rider can make a difference around here too with how you make the bike feel.
“I have just tried to do what I experienced on the Yamaha; it took me a few years to figure it out – it has not been easy but we have had a good day.
“We have changed very little on the bike; we didn’t do a long run but we did a lot of time on one tyre and it has been the same the last five years; if you can nip into the 1m:15s at the end of the race you are normally on the podium and we wasn’t far off that.
“Nobody has got the pace to say they will win the race yet, but it has been a good day and that last lap was a bonus.
“The bike works well but like Max Cook said, it is the race that counts.”